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Month: November 2015

Wahhabism or Wahhabi mission is a religious movement or branch of Sunni Islam.It has been variously described as “orthodox”, “ultraconservative”,”austere”, “fundamentalist”, “puritanical”(or “puritan”) and as an Islamic “reform movement” to restore “pure monotheistic worship” (tawhid) by scholars and advocates,and as an “extremist pseudo-Sunni movement” by opponents. Adherents often object to the term Wahhabi or Wahhabism as derogatory, and prefer to be called Salafi or muwahhid.

Wahhabism is named after an eighteenth-century preacher and scholar,Muhammad ibn Abdal-Wahhab (1703–1792). He started a revivalist movement in the remote, sparsely populated region of Najd,advocating a purging of practices such as the popular “cult of saints”, and shrines and tomb visitation, widespread among Muslims, but which he considered idolatry (Shirk), impurities and innovations inIslam (Bid’ah). Eventually he formed a pact with a local leader Muhammad bin Saud offering political obedience and promising that protection and propagation of the Wahhabi movement would mean “power and glory” and rule of “lands and men.”The movement is centered on the principle of Tawhid,or the “uniqueness” and “unity” of God.The movement also draws from the teachings of medieval theologian IbnTaymiyyah and early jurist Ahmad ibn Hanabal

The alliance between followers of ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Muhammad bin Saud’s successors (the House of Saud) proved to be a rather durable alliance. The house of bin Saud continued to maintain its politico-religious alliance with the Wahhabi sect through the waxing and waning of its own political fortunes over the next 150 years, through to its eventual proclamation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, and then afterwards, on into modern times. Today Mohammed bin Abd Al-Wahhab’s teachings are state-sponsored and are the official form of Sunni Islam in 21st century Saudi Arabia.

Estimates of the number of adherents to Wahhabism vary, with one source (Michael Izady) giving a figure of fewer than 5 million Wahhabis in the Persian Gulf region (compared to 28.5 million Sunnis and 89 million Shia).

With the help of funding from Petroleum exports (and other factors), the movement underwent “explosive growth” beginning in the 1970s and now has worldwide influence.

Wahhabism has been accused of being “a source of global terrorism”,inspiring the ideology of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria(ISIS) and for causing disunity in Muslim communities by labeling Muslims who disagreed with the Wahhabi definition of monotheism as apostates (takfir), thus paving the way for their execution for apostasy. It has also been criticized for the destruction of historic mazaars and other Muslim and non-Muslim buildings and artifacts.The “boundaries” of what make up Wahhabism have been called “difficult to pinpoint”, but in contemporary usage, the terms Wahhabiand Salafi are often used interchangeably, and considered to be movements with different roots that have merged since the 1960s. But Wahhabism has also been called “a particular orientation within Salafism”,or an ultra-conservative, Saudi brand of Salafism.

With Debacle in Bihar and Delhi elections, Many have raised the voices that Has Modi Wave Gone? Has the strategy of Amit Shah failed completely? Was the changing factor Prashant Kishor and because he joined hands with Nitish, It was a better campaign to pull of Victory from Modi? Is Prashant Kishor creator of Modi Wave and many more questions.

Lets first understand Modi Wave and Indian polls along with strategy coined by Amit Shah and Prashant Kishor, which worked wonders in Election 2014 for BJP and reasons, why the same formula is not working anymore.

Modi Wave

Narendra Modi was Chief Minister in Gujarat and won elections there for 3 consecutive terms, Off late after Atal Bihari Vajpayee Govt in 2010-2011, When NDA was not doing well at center and with great performance and development by Modi ji in Gujarat, Many people say 15-20% of population in India wanted Modi Ji to be named as a PM candidate of NDA and revive ruins after 2 consecutive defeats at hands of UPA.

With corruption charges and scams faced by then UPA, Large scale non corruption moment, Good performance and development+ clean government for 12+ years by Modi Ji in Gujarat and also his ability to attract global investor to pump funds in various projects in Gujarat, more and more people started believing in Him and wanted him to be the PM candidate in Election 2014, which happened and Modi Ji’s NDA won a decisive mandate crossing 300+ seats with BJP alone crossing majority. This feeling of people behind modi was nothing but Modi Wave.

How Elections in India Work?

The real beauty of our democracy is that we can have multiple parties and since each party would be based on certain ideology, an election in its generic form is a battle between ideologies. When a party manages to cross the halfway mark single handedly, it wins and forms the Govt. But when no party crosses that mark, then the one which has got the maximum seats usually tries to convince one or more parties to work out common ideology (common minimum programme or agenda) to form a coalition and form the Govt.

However, there can be instances where parties which are not confident of winning single handedly, might form pre-poll alliance with other parties based on some common agenda. In some cases, that agenda can be to uplift depressed classes, and in some cases, it might be to build a temple, and in some cases, to develop infrastructure, and so on. But here comes a psychological factor. Due to fear of getting obscure, especially when there is a very strong contender, some parties might form pre-poll alliances with just a single agenda: “To defeat that strong contender”.

The sole purpose is to get maximum vote share to defeat the best contender, who would have won having better plan and agenda. Indian National Congress had really mastered this strategy in India since years and hence they have ruled us from so many years generation after generation.

Few more examples of then Congress, which was strong were case of Janata Party, which was a grand alliance of all parties which wanted to defeat Indira Gandhi in the 1970s. How about the Third Front in late 1980s headed by VP Singh? Or the United Front in mid 1990s by HD Deve Gowda? What was their modus operandi? Just to form a huddle so they can actually keep a deserving party ( read with majority votes percentage) out of power. The same method was used by Atal Bihari Vajpayee many times and he finally succeeded to get a government for 5 years with many allies to support him.

What was the Chanakya Strategy of Amit Shah to implant Modi Wave?

Well, Amit Shah and Prashant Kishor with his campaigning and strategy team had the same formula to get highest vote share in each seat, which is described above with some improvisation. What they did in General Elections 2014 is put right candidate in seats, which were difficult to win or BJP had some doubts on it. Kar Sevaks and ground workers did grass root level work. Candidate was carefully selected in these seats, who has capability to pull maximum Votes and the formula ensured that after vote split in Multiple Parties, BJP in each such seat will emerge with highest share there by winning the seat comfortably. This was modi wave and chanakya formula, which swept to complete majority with BJP itself crossing magic figure of 272.

State elections at Jharkhand, J&K, Haryana and Maharashtra-What really happened?

The same Amit Shah Chanakya Strategy and Vote share formula was applied. It worked in below states amazingly well.

Jharkhand- Votes Split Across JMM, RJD and BJP . BJP winning Majority and formula worked.Haryana-Votes Split Across Congress, INLD and BJP. BJP winning Majority and formula worked.J&K-Votes Split across Congress+NC, PDP and BJP and Formula worked well to be second largest party in Vally sweeping Jammu for the 1st time in History.Maharashtra- Here since Shiv Sena and BJP fought separately, because of huge incumbency of existing Congress+NCP, BJP did perform well but short of majority.The formula did not completely work to Majority as expected since Votes got split between Sena and BJP resulting in loss of many seats as expected.

What really went wrong in Delhi 2015 polls?

Delhi elections second time was completely swept by AAP with a margin of 67-3 for 70 seats contested. Such a Huge debacle was completely a result of Formula and Chanakya Strategy of Amit Shah clearly not working.

Since Delhi did not have any 3rd party. Of course, there was congress but everyone knew, it cannot win and hence it did not poll desired number of votes in each seat. The competition was clearly between AAP and BJP. BJP under shah and others tried the same trick and formula used in election 2014 and other states mentioned above but it failed completely since the opposition was one(AAP) and not many as it used to be and votes used to get split. This resulted in complete strategy going wrong and AAP winning Delhi with huge mandate.

What really went wrong in Bihar 2015 polls?

The same delhi Story was replicated in a even better way. We all know that Prashant Kishor Switched Sides and joined Nitish Kumar, Its not new, if we check his history before 2014, he approached with his election strategy to Sonia and rahul gandhi. When congress said No to him since they were hiring a foreign PR team, he approached Modi and BJP, who accepted his proposal and with strategy and formula of vote share created swept 2014 polls. Now, when he has switched sides, the formula and strategy was also leaked to opposition. Hence Mahagatbandhan was well prepared to counter this.

Same Delhi formula was used. No third contender and choice is either NDA or Mahagatbandhan. Nitish started ground work and campaigning 6-8 months back and when NDA was busy in other state polls and was way ahead in campaigning. He also did door to door and house to house campaigns to woo voters in areas, where he was sure to loose and considered them as hubs of BJP as guided by Prashant Kishor.

To Prove that it was just and just formula did not work considering single opposition, who was prepared with better candidate and single option cutting and negating any chance of vote split in all seats, it was really tough for BJP, who was caught unprepared.

It was not the reason that people, who voted for NDA in 2014 General Elections did not vote for NDA. In fact, the voting percentage of elections held in 2010 in Bihar and in 2015, there is a increase of 10%, which proves popularity of our PM and Politics of Development but the opposition this time has come single consolidating major percentage of remaining vote share in seats, which are neutral or difficult for NDA and has swept them all because they knew strategy of NDA and were better prepared with counter formula to defeat Chanakya strategy of Amit Shah.

What is going wrong actually?

Even when BJP and strategist Amit Shah know that Prashant Kishor has switched sides and his winning formula/strategy is open to opposition, NDA and BJP has gone with same approach and hence it was easy for opposition in Delhi and Bihar to read strategy of NDA and combat it.

Example on similar lines from cricket is Ajanta Mendis destroyed Indians in Asia Cup Finals of Asia Cup picked up 6-13 and destroyed Indian team. Problem was the carom boll of Mendis was new to Indian team and batsmen did not read it. After it, in all other tournaments, bowling of Mendis was destroyed by Indians since they read it over videos and knew, what was coming. Similarly, Nitish and Mahagatbandhan knew, what was coming from BJP and NDA and was well prepared to destroy.

Role of Media and Aggressive Media talks by Yogi Adityanath

Role of media has been always against ruling party BJP. Be it dadri or dalit kid burning, which was always projected fake and against BJP with full Media cover with series of debates during phases of elections to tweak voters mind. Also Award Wapsi was planned in same time again to destabilize voters , which might have created impact but extremely minor.

Yogi Adityanath and Sadhhvi Prachi gave provocative response to SRK statements in Intolerance which they should have avoided. Like there could be many BJP supporters, who are bigger Bollywood fans then politics lovers. This statement could tweak their votes against BJP if they were die hard fans of SRK. These kind of statements by BJP,RSS and VHP spokesperson including reservation comment by RSS Chief Mohan Ji Bhagwat should be avoided in future. Again, this could have had a extremely minor impact on electoral results.

Many other things, which went wrong in Bihar Polls-

BJP needs to understand one thing that Modi is no magician and Amit Shah is no Chanakya. They are humans with their limitations. Modi understands the national narrative well. He knows Gujarati politics well, may be he knows politics elsewhere too but in all other elections except the General elections and Gujarat Assembly Elections, he will never be considered as a local face. Villagers, uneducated people, less educated people and people who cast votes purely on the basis of caste do not invest their 100% confidence in non-local campaigners. This is what happened in Bihar Elections. The Bihar BJP Team looked like Modi, Shah and a few hangers who nodded at everything that Modi and Shah said.

As far as oratory is concerned, Modi is a natural. But to assume that he is the only orator in BJP is a huge mistake. Even Atal Bihari Vajpayee who I consider the best orator ever in Indian politics allowed the likes of Sushma Swaraj, Pramod Mahajan, Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi to address rallies. I used the word “allowed” because that’s how it seems.

The way BJP were going in this elections, it seemed as if there were no other faces in BJP, let alone local faces.

BJP failed in training and nurturing local leadership who could respond to Nitish and Lalu’s jibes in chaste Bhojpuri, Maithili, Magahi, Angika or the Bihari tapori language of Patna belt. Many of Modi’s Shuddha Hindi words were undecipherable for the local masses. Amit Shah’s heavily accented Hindi was well alien for them. Why did no BJP leader of Bihar take the center stage? Or were there none? Probably the latter because Sushil Modi, the tallest Bihar BJP leader has proved himself to be a complete dud as far as realpolitik skills are concerned. He first allowed Nitish Kumar to walk away with all glories of development, he allowed him to stop Narendra Modi from entering Bihar few years back and then to top it all, he allowed Nitish Kumar to dump him and his colleagues like a heap of filth.

No Rallies and Speech by Ravi Shankar Prasad

No Rallies and Speech by Radha Modhan Singh

No Rallies and Speech by Shahnawaz Hussain

No Rallies and Speech by Giriraj Singh

No Rallies and Speech by Rajiv Pratap Rudi

Regenerating IT cells and Empowering Right Winged Blogs

While the Left wing works like a mafia wherein there is a structure and people even from the lowest ranks are supported and promoted, Right Wing works like a small shop, where the shopkeeper likes less competition so that his shop runs well. BJP IT CELL completely failed at creating a right wing ecosystem and hence small blogs like us or our friends at tfi, Shankhnaad and opindia remain unnoticed while the scrolls and firstposts and DailyOs are nurtured, funded and promoted by the leftists. BJP also should not worry about loss of Prashant Kishor, there are many Prashant Kishors available, who will do their best for Modi Ji. All they need is call, guidance, motivation and recognition.

It is better that BJP accepts now that Modi Wave and Chanakya Niti formula of Amit Shah is now well known to opponents. Now either formula and strategy needs a change to get 50+ percentage vote share on own by doing ground work and strategic candidates, better campaign on some seats and also play what is called “Rajneeti” to make sure that Vote share is split in case of seats, where new strategy cannot be applied.

General one strategy for election now wont work for BJP and it needs to work hard and come up completely new and customized strategy and approach to beat the opponents, who now know the tricks.

Credits : Some contents taken from The Frustrated Indian website and SatyaVijai website

So the results of the much anticipated Bihar elections is out finally and the Grand alliance has won huge. But what are the implications is the real question. Are the implications only limited to the B.J.P as the Media is suggesting?? Or Media is showing just a one sided picture? Let’s analyze it point by point.

Setback to the BJP- Yes its a huge setback for the BJP. As everyone knows that the Modi led Government is trying to push for a series of reforms in the Parliament and the opposition is opposing it for the sake of opposing. Now whenever Modi will talk about reforms, the Bihar result will be thrown on to him. So now reforms will take a back seat because of these elections. Also the quest for majority in the Rajya Sabha suffers a serious setback. This will embolden the opposition.

JDU-RJD combine- One of the surprising elements of the results have been the emergence of Lalu Yadav led RJD as the single largest party. Now this is something serious which nobody is talking about. Even if Nitish is sworn as the CM, the real power will be with Lalu because of these numbers. Nitish may have been good as a CM in the past but now he won’t have the same monopoly over policies. Its Lalu who is going to dictate terms. This is not at all good for the interests of Bihar. So in my opinion Nitish will be the next Manmohan Singh or to be local the next Rabri Devi.

These are the two major implications in my opinion that can be drawn from these results. Now how this government runs remains to be seen.

Last few weeks have seen a widespread clamour among some of the “Intellectuals” of the country to return their awards citing “Extreme Intolerance” in India. We would listen to all even if they are wrong. But the last person to lecture India over intolerance in my opinion is Arundhati Roy. The same Arundhati Roy who has made India bashing her occupation.

Its natural for Ms. Roy to see the “Intolerance” because she owes her allegiance to extreme Left wing which has lost its importance in the “New India”. When she says India has become intolerant she probably means intolerant toward leftists and pseudo intellectualism. There was a time when left wing had the monopoly over the narrative of this country. How people think was also decided by these kind of people. But 16th May 2014 was the date when suddenly everything changed. The leftists lost their monopoly which they enjoyed since independence. People started to question their theories. That is when intolerance was born in this country.

Sorry Ms Roy but this is not the India which would tolerate your nonsense. If intolerance is meant by rejecting of old and obsolete ideas of the left then yes we are intolerant. Rest assured, we are not going to change